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LOW COST OR FREE INTERNET ACCESS: |
Monday September 14, 2004 Talk Is Cheap Using Internet Long-DistanceJorge Chavez, sitting in his office on a used car lot in Hollywood, picks up the phone and dials his sister in Peru. Nothing unusual about that - except that the call went out over the Internet, sounded as clear as if he had been calling Fort Lauderdale, and cost just a few pennies. Welcome to the world of voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, which sends phone calls over the Internet. VOIP has been hailed for years in the telecom industry as the next big thing, but problems with sound quality have prevented it from gaining widespread acceptance. Now VOIP, which has been available since the mid-1990s, is poised to fulfill its promise. "Only in the last three to six months has the quality caught up with the hype," said Clive Raines, president of international operations of VOIP Inc., a Fort Lauderdale-based provider. "The cost savings are so substantial that business managers can no longer ignore it." The number of VOIP users in the United States, now fewer than 1 million, is expected to soar in the next three years. Chavez, president of SAI Motors Inc., a seven-employee company that exports used cars to Latin America and the Caribbean, has cut the cost of his international calls from about $700 to less than $100 a month.
Author: Ian Katz
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